1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a system and method for providing electronic content to distributed devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Motion picture feature films and similar audio-visual digital content is often distributed as a package of digital content formatted for play by a specialized player according to a specific standard. For example, movies, television episodes, and similar content are often encoded as digital data on optical media such as DVD, HD DVD or Blu-ray discs, and distributed in packages of one or more discs. Each digital content package may consist of a specific set of binary files formatted according to an applicable audio or video codec, representing various parts of an interlinked media presentation when played by the appropriate media player. For example, one file may be played to present a feature film, while other files are played to present various menus and special features on a consumer display device, such as a video monitor. All of the files are characteristically configured to be playable using a media player compliant with a specific standard, which specifies various video or audio codecs, for example, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, SMTPE-VC1, Linear PCM, and Dolby Digital. Supported codecs require limitations on the digital content that is to be played, and data or executable files that do not comply with a supported codec cannot generally be played using a standard media player. Information concerning the DVD and HD DVD standard is available from the DVD Forum at www.dvdforum.org, although the HD DVD standard is no longer supported. Information concerning the Blu-ray standard is available from the Blu-ray Disc Association at www.blu-raydisc.com.
Digital content packages formatted to specific DVD, HD DVD or Blu-ray standards are usually provided on a physical media, such as an optical disc. These standards were specifically developed for optical media, and are designed to provide a specified data density for media compliant with the applicable standard, among other things. Digital files encoded on media complaint with these standards, in turn, must comply with published video or audio codecs specified by the applicable standard. It should be appreciated that a digital content package consisting of files that comply with all requirements of a particular standard may be encoded on other media besides an optical disc medium. Such a digital content package may be streamed via a wide area network, wirelessly broadcast, and/or stored on a variety of different computer memories, while retaining all the characteristics of a compliant content package, including consistent adherence to specific audio-video codecs for encoding of audio-video data, and strict avoidance of executable or other data not compliant with the applicable standard. Such characteristics make the compliant digital content package suitable for use by any compliant media player to provide audio-video output.
Many users also own and operate player devices that are not compliant with the same applicable data standard as used for encoding the digital content package. For example, many consumers own a Blu-ray player connected to their home or portable video monitor, and also own a cell phone, personal digital assistant, portable game player, or similar portable device that, although having a video display capability and audio output capability, is unable to play Blu-ray content packages. As compared to the older DVD standard, the Blu-ray standard provides the advantage of built-in support for network connectivity features.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a method or system for providing content in connection with a digital content package, such as a Blu-ray disc or comparable article containing digital content encoded on a medium according to a network-supported optical disk format, that overcomes these and other limitations of the prior art.